CUSTOM DESIGN NOZZLES KEEP THE ETHYLENE PROCESS COOL

Developing custom spraying solutions for a wide range of industrial applications is a specialist area for BETE Ltd, with an emphasis which is often focused on ‘problem solving’ in challenging situations. One recent example in a chemical processing application involved oil quenching in the production of Ethylene. Worldwide demand for ethylene is approximately 45,000 million tons per year and growing and it’s the base ‘ingredient’ for many other products, such as polyethylene. In fact up to 40% of the ethylene manufactured worldwide goes to polyethylene production. Ethylene feedstock is usually ethane, propane, butane, or a number of other feedstocks. The feedstock is mixed with steam and heated to a temperature of about 1500°F to cause the reaction that converts it to ethylene in the pyrolysis furnace. It is downstream from the pyrolysis furnace where BETE’s specialist nozzle expertise is required, as part of the crucial cooling process where it’s necessary to cool the process stream in order for the chemical reactions to take place correctly. This is accomplished by injecting oil into the process stream to reduce the temperature and it’s critical to have a good spraying pattern into the process stream to ensure effective cooling. BETE were given a specification that gave the temperature and pressure outside the nozzle along with the temperature, viscosity, type of fluid, density and available pressure across the nozzle.